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SATURDAY
Anybody care to speculate what 875 feet by 20 feet of 650-ton steel translates to in dollar terms? Alberta Chu’s 2003 documentary Seeing the Landscape: Richard Serra’s Tuhirangi Contour doesn’t concern itself with the cost incurred by bullish patron Alan Gibbs over a five-year installation period, but one would imagine the New Zealand mogul parted with more money than he probably intended to when he first commissioned a piece by the celebrated minimalist sculptor for the Farm, his private sculpture garden deep in the countryside. Gibbs’ expectations were for something light and manageable, but Serra, frequently shown in the film pacing the landscape as he tries to nail down a concept, eventually insisted on something of epic scope. ”Epic” turned out to mean a big-ass steel curtain—which in the film grows up before the viewer’s eyes in mere seconds thanks to Chu’s use of time-lapse photography, distilling months of labor into something like an afterthought. And it was, in a way: As an auburn rust settles over the steel and sheep mill about, what’s most striking is that nothing looks remotely out of place. So deeply is the wall in harmony with the Farm’s vast, rolling landscape, it’s as if it had always been there. Seeing the Landscape is shown with Sophie Bruneau and Marc-Antoine Roudil’s 2002 documentary Trees, a hit on the festival circuit that wants to make you a hugger of its subject matter. The films screen beginning at 4 p.m. Saturday, March 19, in the National Gallery of Art’s East Building Auditorium, 4th Street and Constitution Avenue NW. Free. (202) 842-6799. (Chris Hagan)